This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1844. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXXV. ftWAMOR PLAIN ONCE THE BF.n OF A LAKE--TAMENESS OF PEACOCKS. On the 19th, 20th, and 21st, we came on forty miles to the village of Antree in the Gwalior territory, over a fine plain of rich alluvial soil under spring crops. This plain bears manifest signs of having been at no very remote period, like the kingdom of Bohemia, the bed of a vast lake, bounded by the ranges of sandstone hills which now seem to skirt the horizon all round; and studded with innumerable islands of all shapes and sizes, which now rise abruptly in all directions out of the cultivated plain. The plain is still like the unruffled surface of a vast lake; and the rich green of the spring crops, which cover the surface in one wide sheet unintersected by hedges, tends to keep up the illusion, which the rivers have little tendency to dispel; for though they have cut their way down immense depths to their present beds through this soft alluvial deposit, the traveller no sooner emerges from the hideous ravines which disfigure their banks, than he loses all trace of them. Their course is unmarked by trees, large shrubs, or any of the signs which mark the course of rivers in other quarters. The soil over the vast plain is everywhere of good quality, and everywhere cultivated, or rather worked, for we can hardly consider a soil cultivated which is never either irrigated or manured, or voluntarily relieved by fallows or an alternation of crops, till it has descended to the last stage of exhaustion. The prince rack-rents the farmer, the farmer rack-rents the cultivator, and the cultivator rack-rents the soil. Soon after crossing the Scinde river we enter upon the territories of the Gwalior chief, Sindheea. The villages are everywhere few, and their communities very small. The great...